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‘Extinct’ Filipino rat rediscovered

Prague/Dasmarinas (Philippines), April 17 – Czech researchers found an allegedly extinct mammal species, the Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat, on Dinagat island in the Philippines and their colleague announced it at a local scientific conference, zoologist Milada Rehakova has told CTK.

The brown rodent with a white end of the tail is known only thanks to one example from Dinagat Island that was described in 1975.

“My husband, programmer Vaclav Rehak, saw a big hairy rat creeping through the vegetation slowly at the beginning of 2012. A week later, we took the first photographs and video recordings (of the rat) in the wild,” said Rehakova, who has been researching into the Philippine tarsier (Carlito syrichta) prosimians in the Philippines since 2007.

The Czech couple documented the rat in the last virgin forest on the island in January.

The Dinagat bushy-tailed cloud rat (Crateromys australis), which is 55-centimetre-long, including the tail, ranks among the largest rodents in the world. It is a night animal living on trees.